


'Till Thrice He Kisses Thee

by NoirSongbird



Series: Child Ballads [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Ballad 34: Kemp Owyne, Dragon!Hanzo, M/M, Unusual Erogenous Zones, here there be dragon dicks tbh, like ballads are pretty fairy tale i think, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 14:58:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8628736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: Sent on an outreach mission to the Shambali to distract him from mourning his mentor's death, Jesse McCree expects a few long, boring months in the mountains of Nepal and to maybe make friends with a few of the monks. What he absolutely does not expect is to go spelunking and find a dragon.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the second fic in my interconnected series of oneshots based on Child Ballads! This one is based on [Kemp Owyne](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqw7MKV2owc), though a bit more loosely. You can see what I have planned for this series [here!](http://noirsongbird.tumblr.com/post/153190784246/child-ballad-series)
> 
> A special thanks to everyone on the Overwatch Writer's Guild Discord for all the encouragement, help, beta reading, and general awesomeness y'all provide.

Hanzo stumbled through the gates of the castle, legs shaking and heart racing. He had been certain Genji was still behind him, but there were not nearly enough footsteps for that to be true. He stopped, and turned, and --

Genji was gone. His heart dropped, and panic seized him. None of this - defying the clan, fighting through the castle, having to strike down people he respected and admired and had blindly obeyed for years - was worth it if Genji did not make it out.

“Genji!  _ Genji!”  _ He screamed his brother’s name, praying for some sort of response. Perhaps Genji had just fallen a little behind, and he would be catching up, and…

The gates were thrown open behind him, but it was not Genji who stumbled through. It was one of Hanzo’s uncles, Isamu. The man who had taught him to shoot a bow when he was barely a child, over twenty years ago now - Hanzo’s mentor for two decades, and now he stood with sword raised and murderous intent in his eyes.

“Genji is  _ dead, _ ” Isamu snarled, “or soon will be. Your little rebellion has failed, and you will both die. It is unfortunate, but we will find replacements to take over leadership of the family. Someone more  _ qualified.  _ More  _ properly loyal.  _ Less  _ soft,  _ and bound by  _ sentiment. _ ” He strode forward, and swung his blade, and Hanzo met it automatically. Hanzo fought almost robotically, blocking and swinging by rote and not by any clever design, because his mind was still stuck on  _ Genji is dead.  _

It couldn’t be true. Genji  _ had  _ to still be alive, because if Genji was dead, Hanzo had thrown his life away for nothing. 

There was a roaring from deep in the compound, the sound of an enraged dragon. Hanzo was familiar with it, from when he would loose his own dragons on the family’s enemies. It belonged on the  _ battlefield,  _ not here, not echoing through their  _ home. _

Isamu stopped fighting for a moment to turn, and Hanzo took advantage of his distraction, sliding under his guard and driving his sword through his uncle’s chest. The man let out a wet hacking sound, and he looked at Hanzo with ice in his eyes.

“May your outsides match your insides, you traitorous snake, 'till someone reminds you of loyalty and honor and love,” he spat, and Hanzo took a step back, eyes wide, and pulled the blade out as he went.

There was another roar, and from between the gates came one of the clan’s great spirit dragons - bright green, like…

Like Genji’s.

Isamu raised his sword and spun to challenge the dragon with an angry bellow, but the beast was greater than both of them. It twisted around him, and his bellow changed to a scream of agony. 

He fell, and Hanzo ran. There was nothing else to do - someone had set the dragons loose on their masters, or perhaps the dragons had finally tired of the bloodshed and infighting in the family. He had no idea where he was running to, and guilt clenched at his heart as he thought of Genji, abandoned to the mercies of their family or the dragons, but as best he could tell, his other option was to die as well.

As he ran, he felt himself changing - shifting, growing - as his uncle’s dying curse took hold.

By the time he made it to the outskirts of Hanamura, Hanzo Shimada was fully a dragon.

 

* * *

 

Jesse McCree was not one for contemplation. Bless the Shambali monks at the monastery, they certainly weren’t a stodgy crowd - Zenyatta was all kinds of clever and fun - but it was still a  _ monastery.  _ He was fairly certain, when assigned the mission by a fierce-looking Ana who waved off all of his refusals with an “it’ll be good for you to get out and meet new people,” that he was the absolute worst choice for this little outreach mission of Overwatch’s, because he was an ex-criminal with a loud mouth and a wild streak a mile wide. He was also, technically, not actually a member of Overwatch; his name being on the roster was mostly a cover. He was  _ Blackwatch,  _ the special operations division, Overwatch just borrowed him sometimes when they needed his deadly aim.

All in all, outreach like this, in his opinion, was better left to, say, Lena, with her sunshine smile and infectious joy. Most of the Shambali really did seem charmed by his cowboy hat and his easy smile and his casual but respectful manner, though, so perhaps he ought to give Captain Amari more credit.

Besides, it was better than being back at HQ, looking over his shoulder and expecting to see Reyes but finding nothing. The whole place felt empty and cold without him, like all the life had been sucked out of it when Gabriel died. 

Perhaps Jesse was being unfairly melodramatic. Gabriel had been like a father to him; his loss hit hard. So maybe it wasn’t that Watchpoint: Geneva had actually gotten colder and emptier and sadder, and just that  _ Jesse  _ had. Jesse and Jack, both - sometimes he was convinced Jack didn’t come back from the mission where they lost Gabriel either, and what was hovering around Geneva was just Jack’s ghost, too stubborn to let anyone else do his job even if he  _ was  _ gutted by the loss of his husband.

Jesse was fairly certain the tragic ghost of Jack Morrison-Reyes was doing a whole lot to contribute to him feeling like Geneva was a charnel house.

He was out here, though, not back there, enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine and the mountain breezes, taking a hike towards a cave system Zenyatta had mentioned. He needed some time away from the monks, who were all  _ very concerned  _ with his grief and his mourning and generally with how he dealt with loss, which, if you asked Jesse, was his business and no one else’s. Sure, they meant well, but it was a whole lot of poking and prodding and asking far, far too many questions.

So to the caves it was, for a little walk and maybe a bit of poking around. It was harmless, he was sure; just a bit of exploration to get his mind off things.

Zenyatta had mentioned that there were stories of a dragon in the caves, but had laughed them off as just that - stories. There were all kinds of myths in the Himalayas, after all; the Yeti was just the most famous and longest-running. Still, McCree was a little bit curious. Stories like that didn’t come out of nowhere, not in his experience. Maybe there was something about how the wind blew through the caves that made it sound like a dragon breathing, or something like that. 

It would make for a story to tell when he got back to Geneva, that was for sure, and Mei would love hearing about whatever weird geologic phenomena he found. It’d be a great way to brighten up her day. 

He made it to the mouth of the caves and stepped inside, pulling his flashlight off his belt and flicking it on. It was standard-issue Blackwatch gear, and provided enough illumination for him to see fairly far down the passageway. So far, the whole place was quiet - nothing to indicate the source of the legends. He kept going deeper, and was surprised to find the system was fairly linear, with few branches - he carefully marked his path, so he wouldn’t get lost on the way back out, but he wasn’t all that worried.

As he got further into the cave system, he began to notice strange scoring marks on the walls. They were dug deep into the rock, like incredibly strong claws had carved them in - this, he suspected, was the source of the rumor of a dragon in the caves. He paused, briefly, to brush a finger over one set of the marks - the edges were oddly smooth, a strange thing if they’d been made by some kind of natural phenomena.

Not that he could think of a natural phenomena that could do this, but surely someone back at Overwatch had to know.

He stopped choosing paths at random, and just followed the scores in the rock, until they led him to a wide open cavern.

In the center of the cavern rested a  _ dragon.  _ An actual, goddamned, real-live, living, breathing,  _ dragon. _

“Holy shit,” Jesse said under his breath, eyes wide. The creature was massive and serpentine - no wings, just a long coiled body. It was electric blue, with a gold mane and tail tuft, and gold antlers curling away from its head.

When it opened its eyes and stared at him, they were a rich, deep amber, like fine whiskey.

“Who goes there?” The dragon asked, in a voice rich and rumbling, and for a moment awe stole Jesse’s voice. “Who  _ are  _ you, to disturb me,  _ cowboy?” _

“Jesse. Uh, Jesse McCree, sir. Uh, dragon?” Jesse answered, once he could make words come out of his mouth again. His heart began to race, and he approached the creature slowly, cautiously. “...You ain’t gonna eat me, are you?”

The dragon let out an offended little huff.

“That would serve no purpose. Except, I suppose, ridding myself of an irritating interloper, which might indeed be useful.” The great creature sounded almost amused, rather than threatening, and so as much as Jesse might have been frightened by his words, the tone relaxed him. “It has been quite some time since someone has dared to wander down here, however. Were you not warned of what lurks in this cave?”

“Tell you the truth,” Jesse said, “I didn’t rightly believe there  _ could  _ be a dragon down here. Didn’t know they existed.” 

“Few do,” the dragon admitted, and he uncoiled slowly, stretching out to his full length - nearly twenty feet, if Jesse had to hazard a guess. “You do not seem afraid.”

“I am right terrified, sir dragon, but ain’t much that screamin’ or cryin’ are gonna do for me,” Jesse said. “And also, I’m a little bit in awe.” The dragon blinked, and then let out a low rumbling laugh.

“At least you are honest.” The dragon said lightly. “If you did not expect to find a dragon here, why venture so far and so deep?”

“I was curious.” Jesse said. “Rumors like that don’t pop outta nowhere, so I figured there had to be somethin’ to ‘em. I, uh, got a whole helluva lot more than I was expectin’,” Jesse let out a nervous little laugh, and the dragon made a humming noise. “Hey, uh, speakin’ of curiosity, I’ve gotta question for ya - you happen to have a name, sir dragon?”

“Call me Hanzo,” the dragon said, and then he recoiled in on himself. “You should go. It is not safe to be in the mountains after dark.”

That was a dismissal if he’d ever heard one. Jesse smiled and tipped his hat anyway, though.

“Sure thing, Hanzo.” The syllables sat a bit oddly on his tongue - Japanese, if he had to hazard a guess, not a language he was very familiar with, but he attempted to imitate the dragon’s pronunciation. “I’d love to come back, though, if that’d be alright with you; ain’t every day a man finds a real live livin’ legend.” Hanzo huffed.

“I supposed you may,” he said, “I do not have much company here.”

“Good!” Jesse said brightly. “I’ll be back tomorrow, then.”

He was going to learn every damn thing he could about Hanzo, because what else was a man meant to do when confronted with an actual, real dragon?

 

* * *

 

Jesse set out much earlier the next day, and brought with him a little food Zenyatta helped him throw together. They didn’t keep much in the way of edibles at the monastery, since omnics didn’t need to eat, but there was enough stored for the occasional human visitor that Jesse could keep himself going. The monk had somehow managed to seem sly as he helped Jesse pack and asked what drew him back to the caves, and the cowboy couldn’t help but wonder if he knew more than he was letting on about exactly what lived above the monastery. 

He made quicker work of the cave system the second time, the route down to Hanzo’s cave already marked out for him and all deliberation skipped to get to the dragon faster. He tried not to grin too widely when he laid eyes on Hanzo, but when he saw that the dragon seemed to perk up a little just looking at him, he couldn’t help the broad grin that spread across his face.

“Howdy there,” he said, sitting down.

“Hello,” the dragon rumbled. He regarded Jesse for a long moment, and the cowboy was content to sit in silence and wait for him to decide exactly what he wanted to say. “You do not seem like you belong here,” he said, finally. 

“Meanin’ no offense,” Jesse said, “but you don’t seem like you belong either. Though I suppose I don’t know where a dragon  _ does  _ belong, ‘cept for guardin’ a tower, and that ain’t the kind of dragon you are, I think.”

The dragon looked sad for a long moment, before he exhaled a misty breath.

“Hanamura. In Japan. That is my home. In the springtime, the cherry blossoms bloom everywhere. It is beautiful, and I miss it dearly.” Hanzo said, and his voice was rough with emotion.

“And you can’t go back?” Jesse asked quietly.

“I would not be welcome there, not as I am. Or as I was, either.” Hanzo huffed quietly.

“You wanna tell me about how that happened?” Jesse asked.

“Perhaps, if you will tell me how a cowboy came to Nepal.” Hanzo replied, voice still soft.

Fine, if Jesse could distract him with his story…

“You want the long version or the short version?” He asked.

“The entire story, please,” Hanzo replied, and Jesse considered exactly where to start.

“When I was a kid, I got tangled up with this gang. I lost my parents pretty young - my dad died in a shootout when I was maybe five; Mamá died ‘bout ten years later. So here I am, barely fifteen, and I’ve got nothing but my mama’s gun and my papa’s hat and damned good aim. Deadlock took me in, and I ran with ‘em for two years - ‘till up shows Overwatch, this…” God, how did he even begin to describe Overwatch? “They’re kinda like a peacekeeping organization, all over the world? So they swoop in, break up Deadlock, and I’m sitting in an interrogation room, and in walks the scariest sonuvvabtch I’ve ever seen in my life. He sits down, put his feet up on the table, and tells me I’ve got a choice. Prison or join his special ops crew - Blackwatch, they call us.” Jesse laughed dryly. “Guess which one I picked?” Hanzo snorted. “As it turns out, that scary sonuvvabitch was the best thing that ever happened to me. Became a mentor of sorts, like the father I never really got to have.” He sighed. It was difficult, to think of Gabriel, even in that context. “Anyway, sometimes Blackwatch lends me out to Overwatch proper, and that’s why I’m here - outreach mission to the Shambali monks down the mountain.”

“I know of them,” Hanzo said. “And they know of me.” 

Damn it, Zenyatta  _ had  _ sent him up here on purpose. For  _ what  _ purpose, Jesse couldn’t fathom, but definitely  _ on purpose.  _

“Did your mentor send you, then?” Hanzo asked, drawing Jesse’s attention back, though it wasn’t a pleasant way for that to happen. Jesse tensed, briefly, and stared down at his lap.

“No. He died, couplea months back. Op gone real, real bad.” Jesse said. “Captain Amari - she’s second in command of the whole operation - is the one who sent me out here. I think she thought it’d do me some good. Maybe it will.”

“I am...sorry. For your loss.” Hanzo said. He seemed to struggle with the words, but the sentiment was still there.

“I’m...dealin’ with it,” Jesse said, which was a massive and terrible lie, and even he knew it. Hanzo let it pass with a quiet huff. “What about you? What brings a dragon all the way to Nepal from Japan?”

“I was not always a dragon.” Hanzo coiled tighter in on himself, looking terribly sad. Jesse reached out a hand and carefully stroked between his antlers, and to his surprise, Hanzo dropped his head in Jesse’s lap to make it easier. “I was a man - the heir to the Shimada clan, a vast and powerful criminal empire. My younger brother, Genji, was...feckless and foolish, happy to live life as he pleased, with as few responsibilities as he could manage. He flouted rules and wasted money, and the elders grew angry.” Hanzo stopped speaking for a long moment, and Jesse continued to stroke his mane, hoping it would make it easier. “They demanded I kill him. I refused. I would not raise my blade against my own brother.” He huffed out another misty breath. “In the end, I raised sword against my whole family. We fought our way through, but Genji and I were separated. I made it out of the castle grounds, but my uncle found me and forced me to fight him. He cursed me into this form as he was dying.” Hanzo shuddered, a full-body thing. “When I realized what had happened, I fled as far as I could, and eventually I found myself here. I was in the caves before the monks built the monastery; they are mostly content to leave me alone.”

“There a way to break this curse?” Jesse asked, very quietly. Hanzo shook his head.

“I do not believe there is.” He said. “When my uncle cursed me, he said that it would last until someone taught me loyalty, honor, and love - but I already know those things. They are what caused me to turn against my family in the first place. How can I be taught that which I already know?” Jesse considered.

“Maybe it’s just that the person doin’ the teachin’ shows you something about ‘em that you didn’t know before?” He offered. Hanzo shrugged, a roll of his shoulders that rippled down his serpentine form.

“Regardless, it is not your concern, it is mine.” He stretched out, comfortably. “Now, tell me more about your Overwatch and your Blackwatch. I wish to know everything I can of the world outside.”

Jesse could recognize a deflection when he saw one, but he would humor the dragon, he supposed. Both of them could use the distraction.

 

* * *

 

The first time Jesse kissed Hanzo, it was something of an accident.

He had been visiting regularly for a few weeks, in between getting to know the monks and calling back to report in to Ana. (He’d told her everything, except about Hanzo. She probably wouldn’t believe him anyway, all things considered.)

He’d really gotten settled into the routine of sitting down and just  _ talking,  _ because Hanzo seemed fascinated by everything Jesse had to say. It was helping, too, more than he realized, to just be able to talk, to recount all the things he’d done with Overwatch and Blackwatch. It reminded him why he’d taken Gabe’s deal in the first place.

He was finishing up a story about an op in Budapest, one he’d been on with Gabe. It had taken months, but taking down the trafficking operation there had been completely worth it.

At some point or another he had gotten comfortable enough with Hanzo to sit nestled in his coils with the dragon’s head in his lap, and as he talked he stroked his fingers through Hanzo’s mane. Every once in a while, a faint purring sound would emanate from the great beast.

“So there we are, the two’a us and no backup, and there’s a whole lotta them and a whole goddamn lotta guns.” Jesse said. “Gabe’s tryin’ to get me to run; we’ve got maybe one out, and it’s down this windy little alley, and he coulda covered me long enough for me to get pretty far.”

“The intelligent thing would have been to run,” Hanzo mused, and Jesse nodded agreement.

“Sure, but it wouldn’t have been the  _ right  _ thing, or the  _ good  _ thing. Never would’ve been able to look myself in the face again, if I left him behind.” Jesse admitted. “So I stood my ground, and I started...talkin’. We weren’t gonna shoot our way out, that was for sure, so I figured I’d try somethin’ else. So I lied  _ damn hard,  _ started tryin’ to convince ‘em that the gentleman who’d sold us out was the real Overwatch mole, and that he was just tryin’ to cover his own ass by sellin’ us out so they’d stop lookin’.”

“And that...worked?” Hanzo asked, sounding deeply dubious.

“I’m sittin’ here, ain’t I?” Jesse asked, laughing a little. “Gabe told me never to try shit like that again, but...I could tell. He was glad I hadn’t listened to him and ran.”

Hanzo was silent for a long moment.

“...My family would have demanded something very different,” the dragon admitted finally. “In the Shimada, you do as you are told and do not question, and the good of the family is prioritized over the good of the individual.” He exhaled. “A superior in the Shimada clan would likely have been ordering you to stand your ground and cover  _ his  _ escape.”

“Deadlock was like that, too,” Jesse acknowledged. “Took me a damn long time to learn that in Overwatch and Blackwatch, when people said they had your back, they meant it, and didn’t mean t’stab you in it later.”

“My brother was that for me,” Hanzo admitted softly. “And I for him. As long as it was in my power, I would not let harm come to him. At least...I tried not to.” 

“Y’did your best,” Jesse said.

Later, if asked, he couldn’t be sure exactly why he did it, except that it seemed, in that moment, like the only thing  _ to  _ do.

He bent down and pressed a brief kiss to Hanzo’s head, right between his antlers.

There was a brief tingle of electricity - of the very literal kind - and Hanzo made a sound best interpreted as “surprise,” and Jesse withdrew immediately. Hanzo lifted his head out of Jesse’s lap, frowning.

“What  _ was  _ that?” He asked, sounding deeply dubious.

“A kiss?” Jesse replied, also with a question, which he knew was idiotic. “I thought...y’looked so sad, I…” He stopped talking and just put his hands in the air in a form of surrender. Hanzo regarded him for a long moment, and then huffed and dropped his head back in Jesse’s lap.

“You are a strange man, Jesse McCree.” He said.

Well, no arguing with that.

 

* * *

 

The second time Jesse kissed Hanzo, it was a little bit more on purpose.

He’d spent a few days away from the dragon’s cave after the first one, feeling slightly ashamed of his behavior (that had been  _ stupid,  _ no two ways to slice it, and he shouldn’t have done it) but staying away left him feeling guilty about leaving Hanzo all alone. 

It felt a little like slinking back, when he returned, but Hanzo perked up at his arrival nonetheless, and that was enough to make him feel less stupid about the whole thing.

“I was concerned you would not return,” Hanzo admitted, and Jesse laughed, letting out the tension he felt twisting him up.

“I couldn’t stay away from you for long, sweetheart,” he said, and Hanzo made a sound that might have been a laugh.

“You and your pet names,” the dragon said, and he sounded fond.

“Can’t help it, darlin’,” Jesse said as he sat down, letting Hanzo coil around him. It was comforting, to settle in the middle of a nest made of a very contented dragon. “Anythin’ specific you wanna hear me ramble on about today?” 

“I have been thinking much about something you said - about never being able to face yourself again, if you had left your Captain behind. What did you mean by that?” Hanzo asked.

“Well, I mean - I gotta do right by myself, y’know?” Jesse said, waving a hand. “Do the honorable thing.”

“You have a very different conception of honor than I,” Hanzo said, though he sounded interested.

“Ain’t it just about...y’know, doin’ the right thing?” Jesse asked, idly beginning to stroke the dragon’s mane. “I mean, that’s what it always meant to me. Honor’s about bein’ able to look at myself in the mirror, and bein’ okay with the person lookin’ back at me. Sometimes that’s hard, I ain’t gonna lie - I did some terrible things with Deadlock, and sometimes bein’ in Blackwatch means doin’ things I ain’t always happy with. But I know in the end I’m doin’ the best I can.”

“That is...hmh.” Hanzo fell silent, for a long moment, and Jesse left him in silence to think about it. He hadn’t exactly  _ set out  _ to challenge all of Hanzo’s notions, it just seemed to happen. 

The family that had turned Hanzo into a dragon weren’t all that different from the gangsters who’d tried to turn Jesse into one of them. The difference was that Jesse had gotten out when he was seventeen, and had been raised in the decade or so since by someone who actually gave a flying fuck about  _ him,  _ as a  _ person;  _ he got the general idea very few people had cared about Hanzo as more than a tool.

That, if you asked McCree, was a damned tragedy. 

This time, he thought about kissing the dragon for a long moment before he carefully lifted Hanzo’s head out of his lap and pressed his lips, briefly, to his cheek, an effective distraction, he hoped, from the dragon’s heavy thoughts.

“Y’don’t hafta look like you’re tryin’ to figure out the meanin’ of the whole universe all the time, Hanzo darlin’,” Jesse teased lightly.

This time, Hanzo’s response was to nudge his nose against Jesse’s face, which Jesse supposed was as close as the dragon could get to responding in kind.

 

* * *

 

The third time Jesse kissed Hanzo, it was absolutely not an accident at all.

It was a strange thing, to realize you loved a dragon - or, Jesse supposed, a man cursed to be one. Still, he adored Hanzo, loved him in a way he hadn’t realized he was capable of. He’d had partners, before, and he’d cared for some of them, but nothing like the bone-deep ache of what he felt for the clever, brilliant, sometimes imperious dragon-man. 

Jesse sometimes hoped his feelings might be returned, but it was difficult to imagine. What would a dragon want with a man like him, no matter how much he seemed to respect him?

Still, Jesse wasn’t one to sit on his feelings; it would feel too much like lying. Or like dragging it out and giving himself false hope. 

His entire walk up to the cave, once he’d made the decision to tell Hanzo how he felt, was long and strained and a little terrifying. He kept dwelling and circling, wondering how exactly one confessed to a  _ dragon.  _ Would Hanzo have expectations? Were there cultural norms of courting in Japan however long ago Hanzo had been human that he would expect Jesse to follow? 

Would Hanzo just throw him out?

He was shaking a little when he stepped into the cave. Maybe more than a little, because Hanzo seemed to notice immediately. 

“Is something wrong?” He asked, voice full of concern as he began to uncoli and move towards Jesse. “You seem...troubled.”

As if that even began to cover it.

Jesse considered his options.

He want with the option that was, perhaps, the most  _ him. _

“I’m in love with you,” he said, and he said it firmly, because even if he was terrified of the dragon’s reaction, he didn’t want Hanzo to think there was an ounce of doubt in his mind about what he felt.

“What,” Hanzo said, and he sounded so  _ pained  _ it broke Jesses heart a little. The dragon was still and stiff in the middle of the cavern, eyes wide, looking poised to bolt, though Jesse wasn’t sure where he would go. Perhaps the caves ran deeper than he knew - he hadn’t poked much around the vast spaces of Hanzo’s cavern, but he had noticed other exits.

“I’m in love with you,” Jesse said, again.

“Do not be ridiculous,” Hanzo said sharply. “I am not human - I am a  _ monster,  _ you  _ cannot.  _ Do not lie to me, not about this!”

“I ain’t lyin’, and you ain’t a monster, Hanzo, y’told me yourself,” Jesse took a step towards the dragon, and then, when Hanzo didn’t flee, closed the distance, until he could put his hands on the dragon’s head and draw it, gently, to his chest. Hanzo’s eyes closed, and he made a sad, desperate little sound, and Jesse realized he was trembling. “You’re a man, who got  _ turned into  _ a monster, and it’s the man I’m in love with.”

“You barely know the man.” Hanzo protested.

“I know that he’s got a clever tongue and that he laughs at my jokes, even when they’re really terrible,” Jesse said, “and I know that even though he’d been taught blind obedience his whole damn life, when his little brother was in danger, he turned on everythin’ he had because he knew he had to do the right thing. I know that no matter what anyone told him, he’s loyal and honorable and I  _ know  _ I love him.” 

When he closed his eyes and pressed his lips just above Hanzo’s nose, this time, he heard the dragon let out a little hitched sob, and there was a powerful feeling in the air, like it was thick with static.

In one electric instant, everything  _ popped,  _ and Jesse no longer had an armful of dragon, he had an armful of  _ man. _

He opened his eyes, and stared down at Hanzo - not, Jesse suspected, as he had been, but as something new.

“Well, damn,” Jesse said quietly. His hands were still cradling the side of Hanzo’s face, and he was surprised at how  _ young _ the man looked - around Jesse’s age, maybe, with long dark hair pulled into a low ponytail, bangs loose and framing his face. There was a streak of gold through it, starting at his temple and flowing through down his back, and he stared up at Jesse with wide amber eyes, looking startled. Blue scales dusted his cheeks, and gold antlers curled out over his head, and Jesse guessed that once he peeled off the clothes the man was wearing - a  _ kyudo-gi,  _ he thought it was called, Jesse had taken a brief interest in all sorts of martial arts, and traditional archery was one of them - he would find more scales scattered over his skin. A tail - long and scaled and with a tuft of golden fur - sprouted from the base of his spine.

“You broke the curse,” Hanzo breathed. “How…?  _ Oh,” _ he seemed to realize it as he asked, and Jesse blinked.

“Care to share your thought process, sugar? Because I’m  _ real  _ lost,” he admitted. He hadn’t even begun to imagine he could undo what had been done to Hanzo - and maybe he  _ hadn’t,  _ since the man still had some distinctly dragon features, but he was...well, he was definitely mostly human.

“The kisses,” Hanzo said. “And what you told me  _ before  _ them. Your loyalty to your Captain, your sense of honor, your...love. The things my uncle said I needed to be reminded of. I did need to be reminded of those things - I needed to be reminded that there were  _ other ways to experience them.” _ He was grinning, and it was the most beautiful smile Jesse had ever seen, and Hanzo leaned up to kiss him properly, arms winding around his shoulders. Jesse sighed happily into the kiss, one hand staying on Hanzo’s cheek and the other moving to run fingers through his hair. 

When they broke, for a moment, Jesse searched Hanzo’s face briefly for any signs of hesitation.

“Y’know, if you think you owe me, you don’t gotta...I mean,” Jesse swallowed. “I ain’t expectin’ nothing from you, ‘s enough for me that you’re free.”

“I would not do this if I did not want to,” Hanzo said, and then he leaned in to kiss Jesse again, hands moving down to touch, though he was stymied by the thick jacket Jesse wore as protection against the mountain cold. He let out a little frustrated grumble, and Jesse broke the kiss with a laugh.

“Let me take ya back to the monastery, I’ve got a nice, private room there, and we can get to know each other  _ real  _ well,” Jesse offered. Hanzo let out a delighted little laugh, and it made Jesse laugh too. 

“Yes,” Hanzo agreed, without an ounce of hesitation.

“Perfect,” Jesse said. He scooped the dragon up, not sure if the armored sandals he appeared to be wearing would provide much protection from the snow, and Hanzo curled up against him.

The trek back was simultaneously long and far too short; he had to take a slightly circular way around and in, because going in the front entrance and risking bumping into Mondatta or Zenyatta or someone else he knew, who would undoubtedly have questions about his armful of dragon that he  _ really  _ did not have the patience to answer, sounded like a terrible idea. All he wanted was to put his hands all over Hanzo, to discover exactly what made a dragon tick. 

Finally, Jesse got them through his door and locked it behind them, and they were alone. As soon as he put Hanzo down, the man seemed absolutely determined to get Jesse out of everything he was wearing. Jesse was just as eager, honestly, and he was glad that Hanzo’s clothes were, for the most part, straightforward. They came off easily, joining his scattered all over the floor. Hanzo’s hands traced over Jesse’s form, pausing admiringly on musculature and thick hair, while Jesse let his fingers find all of the places Hanzo had scales blooming. They twisted all down his arm, following, Jesse realized, the pattern of a dragon tattoo, and there was a line of them down his spine following to his tail, and they were scattered delicately on his thighs. 

Jesse dipped his head to kiss at Hanzo’s neck, and he felt the other man tense up as soon as his lips brushed the skin of his throat, hips stuttering in an aborted little grind. Jesse might have been worried, except that the noise that fell from Hanzo’s lips was one of desperate pleasure. Jesse gently nipped where he’d just kissed, and Hanzo cried out, grinding forward and making Jesse groan. He reached down to stroke Hanzo’s cock, and made a noise of surprised delight at what he found. It was thick and heavy, and it was  _ ridged,  _ and he could only imagine what getting fucked by it would feel like _. _

“Oh, darlin’,” Jesse groaned, “I’m gonna need that in me right about fuckin’ now.” 

“I can give you that,” Hanzo said, “I can give you whatever you want.” 

“Just you,” Jesse breathed, “just you is more’n enough.” He broke from Hanzo and stumbled over to his bag, digging out the little bottle of lube he had packed. He hadn’t expected to find a partner, here, but...well. A man had needs, and Jesse was entirely realistic about his. He flopped down on the bed, coated his fingers liberally, and began fingering himself open. He glanced over, and Hanzo was where he’d left him, watching Jesse prepare himself with rapt attention. “Well? Come on over,” Jesse invited, and he practically flew across the room, slotting between Jesse’s legs and running his fingers over the sensitive skin of Jesse’s inner thighs and making him shiver.

“You are  _ incredible, _ ” Hanzo breathed, and Jesse let out a little laugh.

“Says the man with antlers and a tail,” he teased, lightly, and then he slipped a third finger into himself and moaned, throwing his head back. Hanzo leaned forward and began to kiss his neck, and then his shoulders, and his chest, tongue teasing over a nipple until it was hard and peaked. He moved to the other, and Jesse brought his free hand up to slowly stroke one of Hanzo’s antlers, which made the man on top of him moan desperately. 

God, he would enjoy learning every place that made Hanzo sound like that, every little odd erogenous zone his dragon had.

“Are you ready?” Hanzo asked, voice rough. Jesse exhaled heavily.

“Yeah,” he said, and then he pulled his fingers out. Hanzo reached around him for the lube, squeezing some into his palm and slicking up his cock. 

Hanzo slid in slowly, and Jesse felt the ridges on his cock catching on his sensitive rim, making him let out little desperate gasps of pleasure. It was  _ good,  _ exactly as good as he’d hoped, and now that they were finally coupled Hanzo seemed content to slow down his frantic pace and take it slow and easy. His thrusts were long, slow drags, and when he wrapped a hand around Jesse’s cock and began to stroke that, it was at the same easy pace. Jesse whined, desperately reaching out to touch Hanzo everywhere he could reach, letting his hands slide over skin and scales to begin learning the well-muscled shape of his...his  _ lover,  _ if Hanzo intended to stay.

He gently gripped an antler and tugged Hanzo to his mouth for a long, heated kiss, and licked at his lips to all but beg for entrance. Hanzo parted them easily, and their tongues danced together, a heated counterpoint to Hanzo’s thrusts, which were slowly increasing in speed. 

“Fuck,” Jesse breathed when they broke for air, “I must be the luckiest fuckin’ man alive, to get somebody like you.” Hanzo shook his head, sending his hair cascading over his shoulders. 

“I am the lucky one,” he said, voice quiet and wonderfully wrecked, and his hands moved to grip Jesse’s hips, changing the angle slightly so that his thrusts hit Jesse’s prostate. 

Jesse pressed a hand to his mouth to muffle a desperate scream, not eager for the entire monastery to know he was getting fucked. It was  _ incredible -  _ the drag of Hanzo’s strange and wonderful cock over the most sensitive parts of him had Jesse arching his back and desperately grinding back into Hanzo’s thrusts. 

“More, fuck, harder, Hanzo,  _ please,” _ Jesse’s voice was tight with need, and Hanzo groaned, picking up his speed, and bending to catch Jesse in another kiss. He picked up his strokes on Jesse’s cock, too, squeezing every time his hand got to the base. He had Jesse fucking into his fist and trying desperately to meet his thrusts at the same time, and Jesse could feel sparks at the base of his spine, a tight coiling that was the first hint of his orgasm.

When it hit, it hit him like a freight train, and he reached up to knot his fingers in Hanzo’s hair and hold him in a long kiss as he sobbed through his orgasm. He felt Hanzo spill in him, but the dragon kept fucking into him until they were both shaking and spent, and Hanzo slid out and collapsed on top of him, burying his face in Jesse’s chest for a moment. 

“I love you,” he murmured, slightly muffled, and then he lifted his head and looked Jesse in the face. “I love you, Jesse McCree.”

Jesse felt like his heart might just burst out of his chest and take flight.

 

* * *

 

As Jesse and Hanzo lay curled in each other's’ arms, coming down from the high of their coupling, there was a commotion outside the door. The monks weren’t one for commotion, and so that had Jesse’s attention. He disentangled himself from his dragon ( _ his dragon,  _ his Hanzo) and stood up. 

“I gotta see what all that’s about,” he said. “They wouldn’t be runnin’ around for no reason.” Hanzo nodded sharply.

“I will come with you.” Hanzo rapidly scooped up his clothing, getting back into it with speed that surprised Jesse - but then again, he had likely been wearing it his entire life. It was probably as natural to him as Jesse’s jeans and plaid and armor and serape were to him.

When they got to the courtyard at the front of the monastery, Jesse was greeted with a strange sight. There were two new humans there - though human might have been a slightly inaccurate word for one of them, since he, like Hanzo, had curving antlers and scales visible on his cheeks. Most of the rest of him was covered by winter gear, and he was speaking with one of the monks. There was a woman cradled in his arms, equally bundled up, and with a belly that suggested she was several months’ pregnant. 

“We need somewhere to stay, please,” the dragon-man pleaded softly. “Just until my wife can have the baby - the last few weeks have been difficult, and there are not many places we can seek shelter.”

“Fear not,” Mondatta, the head if this place had one, said, mechanical voice warm. “We will grant you the shelter you seek, wanderer.” 

“Thank you,” the man breathed, carefully handing the woman over to Zenyatta, who hovered next to his brother. Jesse glanced over at Hanzo, prepared to ask him if he’d known there were other dragons in the world, but his question died on his lips at the sight of the look on Hanzo’s face. He looked somewhere between shocked and thrilled, eyes wide, hand in front of his mouth, face speaking of hope he almost didn’t dare to feel.

“...Genji?” He asked, finally, moving his hand away from his mouth, just loud enough to carry across the courtyard. The dragon-man spun, and his eyes went wide for a moment as well, before he broke into a grin and ran over, practically throwing himself at Hanzo and pulling him into a hug.

“Brother!” The man - Genji, this was  _ Genji,  _ the one Hanzo had risked his whole life and gotten cursed for - gasped, squeezing Hanzo’s shoulders tight. “Brother, you’re  _ alive,  _ you’re  _ here,  _ I can’t believe it.” Hanzo’s arms came up hesitantly, but they wrapped around his brother, and Jesse watched with delight as a warm smile spread across his beloved’s face.

This was it, the last piece of the family Hanzo had thought lost. The brother he had thought he failed to save, whole and alive. No wonder he looked fit to burst with joy.

“I am,” Hanzo said, “and so are you - Jesse,” he turned to the cowboy as he released his brother from the embrace, smile not dimming a bit, “this is my brother, Genji.”

“Pleased t’meetcha,” Jesse said, and he tipped his hat. Genji laughed brightly.

“Wow, brother, you’re going to have to tell me how you managed to find a real, live cowboy out here,” he said, looking amused, “and how you  _ got  _ here; last I saw you was when we...got separated, at the castle.” Hanzo sobered briefly, glancing down at the ground.

“I made it to the gates, but Uncle Isamu caught me and cornered me. We fought. He...cursed me, with his dying breath. I was turned into a dragon, and I made my way here, into the mountains, where I found caves to nest in. Jesse...broke the curse.” He looked back over at his brother. “How did you survive?”

“I made a deal with the dragons,” Genji said quietly. “My revenge for my service. I was trapped in the castle until Satya freed me.” He looked over to where he had passed the woman - Satya - off to Zenyatta; she looked to be demanding to be put down, but Zenyatta shook his head firmly and refused her. “Satya knew of this place; she hoped we might find shelter here. Come, meet her, I think the two of you will get along well. ” He darted off, back to his wife’s side, and Hanzo started to follow, but glanced back at Jesse, who just smiled and waved him off. He could get to know this Satya later; for now, he was content to watch as Genji animatedly introduced her to Hanzo, and then gestured over to him. When she looked his way, he grinned and tipped his hat, and she looked halfway between amused and annoyed.

Apparently, Jesse realized, he hadn’t just found a dragon. 

He’d found a whole family.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic now also has art!!  
> [Smut scene](http://featheredclaw.tumblr.com/post/156476191671/lineart-commission-for-noirsongbird-looks-like) by featheredclaw


End file.
